


The Fallacy of False Choice

by DetectiveJoan



Category: Princess Academy - Shannon Hale
Genre: Explicit Consent, F/F, F/M, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-17 22:31:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7288690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveJoan/pseuds/DetectiveJoan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peder laughs once, hollowly. “I don’t know what <em>infidelity</em> is, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal on Mount Eskel.”</p><p>“We’re not on Mount Eskel,” Britta points out and his lips curve into a smirk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fallacy of False Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I have this rule of thumb that YA/MG books shouldn't be allowed to acknowledge that rape exists without also acknowledging that healthy sexual relationships exist, and when Palace of Stone threw out a statutory rape mention I kind of...over-reacted in the form of this really unnecessarily explicit fic.

Britta has found linder wisdom to be a fairly fickle thing. For Steffan -- and presumably his parents, although she’s never asked them -- it’s omnipresent and impossible to ignore, as plain as the sunlight streaming through the palace windows. The consistent noise of it tends to give him a headache when there are too many people in the linder rooms of the palace for too long. For her own part, Britta finds it all much easier to filter out. Even after living in the palace for years, she still has to specifically pay attention to the stone in order to make adequate sense of what someone else is thinking.

Miri’s spending alternating years on Mount Eskel leaves her with a garbled reading of linder wisdom. For the first few months after returning to Asland, she’s almost completely deaf to the stone’s translation of other’s thoughts and feelings.

Eventually, her mind will recalibrate itself to fluently read the stone, so Britta still does her best to keep a lid on her thoughts when she and Miri are in the linder rooms. It isn’t usually too much of a struggle to keep her mind from lingering too long on anything she doesn’t want Miri to know -- the girls keep very few secrets from each other, after all -- but every now and then, Britta becomes preoccupied with the curve of Miri’s neck and how she’d like to press her lips to it, or with the thought of knotting her hands in Miri’s hair and pulling her close until their lips meet, or –

“I CAN FEEL THAT, YOU KNOW!” Steffan hollers from the next room. “YOU COULD AT LEAST TRY TO BE SUBTLE ABOUT IT!

Britta feels a blush flame over her cheeks. To her surprise, Miri's cheeks also tinge red.

“Is he shouting at us?” Miri says. Britta thinks the answer to that is obvious in the way Miri’s voice has to strain for a casual tone, but an even more clear answer comes a moment later in the form of Steffan bursting through the door.

“Were you shouting at us?” Miri says, and the blatant repetition of it is almost a joke.

Steffan points a finger at her accusingly. “Don’t act like I don’t know what you were just thinking. This is getting ridiculous,” he says sternly. He’s doing his best stone column impersonation. “The both of you. Sitting in here and -- and -- _pining_ all day.”

“We aren’t --” Miri starts, but he cuts her off.

“Yes you are. Both of you are.” He turns his accusatory glare at his wife. “I can’t believe you can’t feel it. Her. It’s deafening. I can half feel it from the stables. And I swear, if you two don’t kiss and admit you like each other already, I’m going to personally throw you both out of the linder rooms. You can go pine quietly somewhere far --”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Britta hisses, quickly crossing the room to push him back into the hallway and shutting the door sharply.

It's quiet suddenly, just the two of them in a room that seems much too big.

Miri follows her to the door.  

“I think I should go,” she says. Her face is burning red.

Britta takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She listens to the linder, and suddenly louder than anything else, she can feel _Miri_ – the heat in her cheeks and how she wishes it would go away, the sweat on her palms, and the knot in her throat that she want to swallow down. She can feel Miri's desire to tell a joke, say something, anything, to unravel the past few minutes. She can feel the lie of “not like that” and “just friends” on the tip of her tongue.

Britta pulls her into a kiss.

“Fucking finally,” they can both hear Steffan mutter from the other side of the door.

 

***

 

“I kissed Britta today,” Miri announces to Peder that night as they get ready for bed, because there’s no other way to say it. She’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of their bed, unpinning her hair.

“Congratulations,” he replies, pulling off his shirt.

She throws a pillow at him, but he catches it deftly.

“I’m being serious,” she says. He tucks the pillow behind his head and falls backwards onto the bed. Miri reaches out to smooth the static out of his hair. She can see the round scar of his healed bullet wound in his stomach and knows there’s one to match it on his lower back. She tries not to think about it; the scars always make her feel strangely vulnerable.

“So am I,” he tells her. “It’s about time, too. You’ve been lovesick over her for way too long.”

She almost denies it out of habit, but gives a small shrug instead. “You’re not upset?”

Peder takes a moment to think about it before he replies.. “No,” he finally says. “I do have a question, though.”

“What?”

He gives her a slow grin. “Is she good?”

Miri laughs and shoves the other pillow at his face.

“I’m being serious,” he says, mimicking her tone as he easily pulls the pillow from her grasp and tosses it off the side of the bed.

She can’t keep herself from smiling. “Yeah, she is.”

“Show me?” he asks, more quietly, and he does actually sound sincere now. She nods without hesitation.

After Miri had learned the way linder could capture and communicate history, she had worked on speaking through it with more precision. She’d dragged Peder into practicing with her for months. Eventually, they’d figured out how to send a particular memory to someone, even if the person receiving it hadn’t shared the experience of it.

She closes her eyes and taps a short rhythm against the blanket, gives him the memory quietly.

“Not bad,” he says with another grin in his voice, “but I think I’m better.”

She feels his weight shift on the bed and when she opens her eyes, he’s rolled onto his stomach and is propped between her knees. Miri lets him uncross her legs and then suck a slow line of  hickeys up the insides of her thighs.

He stretches up to press a similarly unhurried kiss to her lips before he rucks her skirt up past her hips and drops his head back down between her legs.

He takes his time stretching her open with his tongue and then his fingers. When she’s close and writhing against the sheets, he moves up and kneels over her. He steals a kiss between her panting breaths before dropping his head down to exhale against her neck. He doesn’t kiss her there -- she bruises like a peach and he does his best to not leave too conspicuous marks -- but his breath is hot and heavy and she shivers at it.

“Still thinking about that kiss,” he says, speeding up the press of his fingers inside her. “With Britta. Could feel how much you wanted it. Been thinking about what else you want from her.”

Miri shivers again, reaches up to wrap her hands around the back of Peder’s neck and drag him into another kiss. He sucks hard on her tongue until she’s reduced to high-pitched and desperate noises.

“Want her to kiss you like that?” he says, licking at his lips when he pulls away. He turns his head to scrape his teeth around the curve of her ear, and drops his voice. “Want her fingers in you like this?” He rubs the heel of his hand against her clit in emphasis and her hips buck up against the pressure.

“Or maybe the other way around,” he says, and he raises his free hand to her face, brushes the pad of his thumb against her bottom lip. “Bet you’d look so pretty on your knees for her.”

He can feel her whole body shudder underneath him as she comes.

 

***

 

A few weeks later, Miri wakes up with her cheek pressed against Britta's shoulder. They're sitting on the floor, side by side, in the library. It's one of the few places in the palace they've found where it's usually safe for them to be this close without the threat of intruding eyes. She curls her legs up and leans more towards Britta, so her knees rest on the top of Britta's legs. The book she had been reading before she fell asleep slides to the floor.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Britta says, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Through the window, Miri can see the sun just brushing the horizon. It paints the library in a deep red. “Please tell me that's not sunrise,” she says.

“No, it's sunset. You only slept for about an hour,” Britta assures her.

Miri rests her hand in Britta's lap, and stretches up to kiss at her neck.

“What happened to reading?” Britta says, curling a hand around Miri's knee.

“Reading is apparently very boring to me today,” Miri says. “Put me right to sleep. We should definitely do something else.”

Britta hums her agreement, then slouches down enough that she can turn her head and kiss Miri properly.

There’s a knock at the door of the library that is less request for entrance than notification, and Steffan pushes it open a moment later. He doesn’t seem either surprised or perturbed to find them so intertwined, but Miri is suddenly uncomfortably aware of every point of contact between herself and Britta.

“Having a good time?” Steffan asks, crossing his arms and leaning against a bookcase almost nonchalantly.

“Very,” Britta says. She takes Miri’s hand, but Miri simply squeezes her fingers briefly and then lets go as she stands.

“It’s getting late,” she says softly, like an excuse. “I should probably go.”

“Wait, Miri,” Britta says at the same time Steffan says, “Don’t leave on my account.”

Britta exchanges a look with her husband and her cheeks flush, just for a moment, before she pulls Miri down into a deep, lingering kiss. When they part, Miri is surprised to find that Steffan has crossed the room and is now standing beside her.

“Actually, Britta and I have been meaning to ask you something,” he says.

Miri’s used to being shorter than just about everyone, but Steffan is at least three hands taller than her and at this close proximity she has to crane her neck to look him in the eye.

“What?” she asks.

Instead of answering, he leans down across the impossible distance between them, drops his hands to rest at her hips, and kisses her. Miri makes a noise of surprise. She can feel Britta, still sitting on the ground at their feet, reach out to loosely curl her hand around Miri’s leg. That touch grounds Miri, and she acquiesces to the kiss, pushing herself up on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms around Steffan’s neck to pull him even closer.

Her breathing’s ragged when they part. She tries to swallow down her rapid heartbeat but can’t seem to get it under control. Steffan brushes his lips lightly against her cheek.

“We were wondering if you’d like to spend the night with us,” he says.

Miri has spent several nights with Britta over their years of friendship, often pressed together in beds made to hold only one person, talking late into the night until they finally succumbed to drowsiness, and waking up the next morning in a shared but innocent tangle of limbs and blankets.

She's very aware that this is not what they're inviting her to.

She takes a moment to roll the idea in her mind.

“I think I should ask Peder,” she says, finally.

Steffan nods, like that's the sort of answer he expected to get. He squeezes her hips once and then lets go.

 

***

 

Miri slips quietly into the royal linder carving workshop. She closes the door behind her just loudly enough to get Peder's attention. He sets down his tools.

“Is anyone here?” she asks

“Just me.” He takes a seat on the edge of a large, uncarved stone. Miri crosses the room to him, pushes him farther back and then crawls into his lap. Her knees brace against his hips on either side and she rests her weight back on his knees, loosely wrapping her arms around his neck. Peder rests his hands on her thighs.

“I need to tell you something,” she says.

He raises his eyebrows – a question and an invitation to continue.

Miri looks at him for a few seconds, and then looks down at the linder beneath them and decides that quarry speaking might be easier than regular speech.

She taps a rhythm on the back of his neck and hums softly. She shows him memories she’s accumulated over the past few weeks -- memories of exchanging open-mouthed kisses with Britta, of slipping her hands under her skirt, of the way Britta's breath hitches when Miri runs her teeth over the line of her collarbone. She shows him, much more briefly, the kiss from Steffan and then she lets her mind linger on his invitation.

Peder's brow furrows. He looks at her closely.

“You slept with Steffan?” he says, sounding unsure.

“No,” Miri says, “but he asked me to.”

“And you said no?”

“I said I'd have to ask my husband.” She keeps tapping her fingers, more restlessly than rhythmically.

“So you wanted to say yes?” he clarifies.

She considers for a moment, then says, “Yes. But I want to know what you think.”

 

***

 

Peder thinks it’s a terrible idea, all around. _It isn't always good for a king to know your name_ had been something like his life motto ever since he'd found out how close Miri had come to being beheaded during the revolution, and he's apparently in the process of following it up with a similar caveat about princes and sex.

“What if someone finds out? Isn’t it illegal?” he demands, pacing back and forth across Britta and Steffan's room. Britta watches him upside down; she's sprawled on her back on the bed, head tipping off the edge. The ends of her hair brush against the linder floor. “Has she forgotten the whole _execution_ thing?”

Britta thinks about reassuring him that enough of the kingdom loves Miri that no one in their right mind would risk the riots that would result from her execution, or that Steffon in particular loves Miri enough to halt any threat of execution made against her.

“I think you're jealous,” she says instead, and the words are a big enough shock to stop him in his tracks.

“Excuse me?” he splutters.

“You're jealous,” she repeats, rolling onto her stomach, “That we asked Miri without you. I can feel it. Through the linder.”

Peder doesn't reply. He crosses his arms and his face goes suspiciously blank.

Britta pulls herself to her knees, weight right on the edge of the mattress. She isn't directly touching the linder, but there's enough of it in the room for her to quarry speak a memory to him. Biting her lip, she thinks about a warm day during her first summer on Mount Eskel, when she'd watched Peder working in the quarry. He hadn't been doing anything particularly notable, but something about him had given her reason to pause and the thought had crossed her mind that a lifetime of hauling stones had given him the sort of broad shoulders built for gripping onto. She hadn't exactly _wanted_ him back then, not with the way her heart still felt hollow from missing Steffan, but she'd seen him in that moment as a man who should be wanted.

Whatever memory her quarry speak triggers for Peder makes him uncross his arms and suck in a quick breath through his teeth. His gaze darts down to where her hands are slowly rucking her skirt up her thighs, fingers trailing against her bare skin. She holds her chest out like an invitation.

“Come on, Peder,” she says, “tell me you don't want me right now.”

He takes a half step forward but then stops himself. “Miri....” he says, but doesn't seem to have the words to finish the protest.

Britta shrugs with one shoulder. “Miri won't mind.”

She listens to her heart pound in her ear as she watches him weigh _that whole execution thing_ , and then he's crossing the room in swift steps and tangling his hands in her hair and kissing her desperately.

She winds her arms around his broad shoulder and, without the slightest doubt, pulls herself up and wraps her legs around his waist.

“Fuck,” he mutters against her lips, easily dropping one arm to catch her. He leaves the other hand in her hair, uses it to drag her head back and expose the long line of her throat and then sucks a bruise in the soft space behind her ear.

 

***

 

“It’s not illegal,” she says afterwards, when she’s curled up against Peder under the sheets. He’s lying on his back with his eyes closed, one arm tucked behind his head and the other wrapped around her shoulders.

“What’s not?” he asks, sounding quite like he’d rather be sleeping than conversing.

“Steffan and Miri,” she says, “and you and I. All of us. Doing...this. _Infidelity_. It’s not illegal.”

Peder laughs once, hollowly. “I don’t know what _infidelity_ is, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal on Mount Eskel.”

“We’re not on Mount Eskel,” she points out and his lips curve into a smirk.

“You’re just trying to convince me to let Steffan join us.”

“More like trying to get you to admit that you want Steffan to join us.”

He cracks one eye open so he can see her well enough to bring his hand to her face and press a finger to her lips.

“That’s supposed to be a secret,” he says.

“Hmm. Maybe we should start with Miri?”

 

***

 

They have enough time before Miri gets back from the castle to scout around the palace. The stipulation against non-royalty living in the linder section of the palace means that their living quarters are surrounded by a buffer of uninhabited rooms. In the end, Peder stumbles across a small kitchen that seems to be used exclusively for storage but not for actual cooking.

"This is it," he says, standing at the open door of a pantry.

Britta, beside him, crinkles her nose. "Don't you think a bedchamber might be more appropriate?" she asks. The space before them basically amounts to the size of a small closet. She's not sure the three of them would even all fit inside it.

Instead of answering, Peder walks into the enclosed space, sizing it up. When Britta follows him in tentatively, he turns back to face her, easily reaching over her shoulder to shut the door behind them.

Britta isn't claustrophobic by any means, but she's acutely aware of how little space there is between them. Peder doesn't seem to be purposefully crowding into her space, but she could still close the distance between them by leaning the slightest bit forward.

He drops his hand from the door to her shoulder, sliding it up to cup her chin and kisses her until she's breathless.

"Yeah," he says when he pulls away. "This is definitely the place."    

 

***

 

When Miri returns to the palace from the queen's castle late that afternoon, she's surprised to find Peder lounging under a tree outside the main gate. There's a long piece of grass poking out of his mouth that he had apparently been chewing on, but which he throws away as soon as he sees her. He breaks into a grin and pulls himself to his feet.

"Hey," she says. She pops up on her tiptoes for a quick peck on his cheek, but when she drops her heels, he follows her down, chasing her into a longer, deeper kiss.

"I have a surprise for you," Peder says.

"A good surprise or a bad surprise?" she says suspiciously.

"Good. Definitely." Without warning, he scoops her up in his arms, bridal style, and turns to carry her into the palace. Miri can’t suppress a startled laugh, clutching an arm around his neck to hold herself up.

He carries her all the way into the linder section of the palace. At each servant or courtier they pass, Peder's grin grows at the same rate as Miri's blush.

He finally sets her down in front of a worn wooden door.

"Isn't this a kitchen?" she says. "Is my surprise dinner?"

"First of all, I can’t believe you know what all the rooms in the palace are. And second of all, no, it's something much better than dinner." He stands behind her, and slips his hands around her head and over her eyes. "No peeking," he says.

He guides her into the room and it's a bit of a dance to lead from behind, but they manage to make their way to the cupboard. Britta's left the door open, and they waltz in easily.

"Ready?" he says. Miri doesn't answer, but she sort of nods. Peder uses his foot to kick the door closed behind them, and presses his back against it. His hands are still covering Miri's eyes when Britta takes a step away from the back of the closet towards them, wraps one of her hands around the side of Miri's neck and kisses her. He can feel Miri stiffen in surprise, and one of her hands flies up to grip his forearm -- for reassurance or for balance, he's not sure.

He pulls his hands away, but he's not sure that it makes much difference in the dimness of the pantry. Light would filter through the slats in the door, but he's blocking most of it from ever reaching Britta's face.

Peder intertwines his fingers with Miri's, bringing their hands down to her sides as Britta crowds even closer, still kissing Miri for all she's worth.

"Good surprise?" he ducks his head to whisper in Miri's ear.

Her mouth is still otherwise occupied, but she makes a rather eagerly ascenting noise.

He presses her hands firmly against the outside of her own thighs. It's an unspoken command to leave them there. They play this game sometimes: one of them is allowed to touch and the other isn't, and he knows she understands by the way she clenches her hands into fists when he draws his own touch away. She even shifts her weight forward so she isn't leaning back against him; her only point of contact is Britta's hands on her face and her insistent kisses. Peder glides his hands up, gently, over Miri's stomach and sides and around to the buttons on the back of her dress. Even without proper lighting, he's adept at getting them undone. He pops the first open and then lets his fingers linger over it for a moment -- waiting to make sure Miri doesn't protest. When she doesn't, he makes quick work of the rest of the line of them.

The dress gapes open at her back but still rests loosely on her shoulders. He slips his hands across her bare skin, back around to her front to cup her breasts. She gasps against Britta's mouth, and Britta takes the opportunity to pull away. She starts to press a line of kisses down Miri's throat, and that finally earns an objection from Miri.

All she says is, "Careful," voice cracking just a hair, but it's enough to make Britta pause. She looks up at Miri questioningly. It's Peder who elaborates.

"You've never met someone who bruises like Miri here does," he says, "and she doesn’t like to have any obvious hickeys."

Britta seems to consider for a moment, then nods minutely. "Lower, then?" she asks, but she's addressing the question to both of them this time. Her fingers curl gently under the collar of Miri's loose dress.

Miri swallows deeply, and mimics the small nod.

The three of them make quick work of the dress and all the layers underneath it. They get kicked somewhere behind Britta, to the darkest corner of the closet and not given another moment's thought. Before they've properly settled in the dust, Britta's hands are ghosting along the expanse of bare skin in front of her -- brushing gently over Miri's hips, stomach, ribs, chest.

Miri's hands are kept obediently at her side.

She arches her back when Peder kisses hotly at the nape of her neck, incidentally jutting her chest out in a way that catches Britta's eye quite efficiently.

"God, you look so beautiful," she says, finally running her hands over Miri's breasts. Peder knows from long experience how sensitive she is there, anticipates the way Miri's going to arch back into him even harder as a breathy moan is punched out of her chest.

Peder's hands are still around Miri, but now he moves them downward until they're wrapping around to the insides of her thigh, pressing her legs a little bit farther apart.

"You could kiss her there," he says. He should be more hesitant about this, he thinks absently. It's a small thought, swiftly dissolved when Miri closes her eyes in anticipation and agreement before Britta ducks her head down and drags the flat of her tongue over one of Miri's breasts.

Peder uses one of his feet to nudge at Miri’s, pushing her legs farther apart as he runs his fingers over her cunt -- not providing any pressure, just seeing how wet she is. Her thighs tremble. He buries his face in her loose hair, pressing his lips behind her ear. “Good?” he asks again.

“Good,” she confirms, breath shaky.

“We didn’t talk about it earlier,” he says, giving her the slightest press with his fingers, “but what about Britta’s mouth? Think she’d feel good eating you out?”

Both girls _whimper_ , a sound of synchronicity he knows he’s never going to forget. He’s been operating on the unspoken assumption that Britta’s willing to do whatever Miri wants her to -- that’s how people generally are with Miri, he’s found, even when they’re not in love with her -- but he hadn’t expected to so easily hit upon something they were equally enthusiastic about.

Peder catches one of Britta’s hands and pulls it down in between Miri’s legs.

Britta looks up and makes eye contact with Miri, who is biting her lip. “Can I?” Britta asks, voice surprisingly soft.

“Please,” Miri says, and Peder thinks that if she were allowed to touch she’d already be shoving Britta to her knees.

Britta goes quite quickly of her own accord, however, and apparently doesn’t need any more encouragement.

What she lacks in experience she more than makes up for in enthusiasm.

She wrings two orgasms out of Miri.

After the first one, Miri goes weak at the knees and Peder’s strong fingers around her hips are the only thing that keep her upright.

After the second, Peder scoops her up in his arms again and then gently slides down until he’s seated on the floor, Miri held close in his lap. Britta, still on her knees, leans past Miri to press a languid kiss to Peder’s lips.

“Good?” he says, turning his Miri.

“Amazing,” she says, sounding utterly worn out.

 

***

 

Britta's exceedingly soft with Miri all the way back to her chamber, where she retrieves a washrag and bowl of water and carefully wipes the cooling sweat from Miri's forehead, then cleans the slick between her legs. Miri keeps pulling her in for short kisses that Britta quickly abandons in favor of murmuring praises of Miri’s performance.

Watching the whole process strikes Peder as intimate in a way he's never quite experienced with either of them. The way Miri relaxes comfortably on the edge of the mattress as Britta kneels behind her to brush out her hair and gracefully pin it up seems to imply that they've been through at least some aspects of this ritual before.

Peder doesn't like the way _jealous_ had sat on Britta’s tongue earlier, but he does admit a certain knotting in his stomach at witnessing this string of quiet moments between them that he'd never been privy to before.

When they're done, he pulls Miri to her feet and steals a lingering kiss from her before wrapping her arm through his and escorting her to the dining hall for dinner.

He's ravenous, and it seems Britta and Miri had both worked up quite an appetite as well. They're all well into their second servings of everything when Steffan finally joins them.

"You know there are plenty of closets in the palace," he says instead of greeting them as he throws himself in the empty seat across the table from them.

Britta raises her eyebrows at him, but Peder knows exactly where this is going. He was, after all, the one who chose the closet in question.

"You couldn't have done that in a room that _wasn't_ made of linder?" Steffan asks. They’re the only people in the room, but there’s still a distinct vagueness to his phrasing. "Are you still somehow misunderstanding the fact that I can _feel_ everything you're doing and thinking when you're in this part of the palace?"

Peder hooks his foot around Britta's leg under the table. He can't read minds through stone, but he can tell without looking that she and Miri are both blushing brilliantly, and he knows before he opens his mouth that he's about to exacerbate the situation.

"We didn't misunderstand," Peder says, spearing a piece of meat from Britta’s plate. "Half the fun is knowing that you're listening in."

He gets the distinct impression that if he weren't so damn composed all the time, Steffan would be gaping. In any case, he gives a very strong general impression of being caught off-guard. "I -- what?" he sputters finally.

"The other half," Peder says, "was waiting to see if you'd come to join us."

He's not sure if he's saying it for Britta's benefit or his own, but the words don't feel like a lie.

“Maybe next time,” he sighs.

 

***

 

Steffan accosts Peder.

“Accost” is a word Peder had learned the previous week because Miri was never content to learn something herself until she had also taught it to someone else. At the time, Peder had thought it a word more relatable to bandits than to princes, but it seems the best description of the way Steffan enters the linder carving workshop without knocking and then shoves Peder firmly up against wall and presses a searing kiss to his lips.

Somewhere through the surprise, Peder thinks to be grateful that Steffan had at least chosen to make such a bold display after Gus had already retired for the night, leaving the workshop empty but for the two of them.

“Hello to you too,” Peder says when Steffan pulls away to catch his breath.

Steffan makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat. He presses his thigh in between Peder's legs. Peder's hands fall to rest on Steffan’s hips uncertainly.

“Want me to stop?” Steffan says, his soft tone at odds with the way his hands are fisted in Peder's shirt.

The answer to that question is a resounding _not at all_ , but Peder just says, “Does Britta know you're here?”

Steffan makes a noise that Peder thinks might be a laugh. “Britta is too busy fucking Miri right now to worry about where I am,” he tells him.

“Or the fact that you're drunk?” The tang of alcohol that Peder can smell on his breath and could taste on his lips isn't quite like the cheap whiskey they brought out on festival days on Mount Eskel but it's similar enough for him to recognize.

“It takes a bit more than one glass of wine to make me drunk,” Steffan says, and he's definitely laughing now. “But if you'd prefer I leave --”

“No,” Peder says. He hates how quickly he says it, but doesn't regret the way it makes Steffan immediately surge closer and slide his tongue along Peder's bottom lip.

He can't help but wince, though, when Steffan presses his mouth open.

Steffan pulls back farther than he had before, a question in his eyes.

“Sorry. My jaw...” Peder trails off. He's never taken the sort of etiquette and conversation lessons Miri has, but he's fairly certain there is no correct way to tell a prince, “my jaw is sore because I overexerted myself a few days ago when I spent most of an hour eating out your wife.”

(“Overexerted” is a word Miri had taught Peder immediately afterward, as she was riding him slowly and licking the taste of Britta off his lips.)

There's enough linder around them that Steffan apparently gets the gist.

“Fuck,” he breathes, biting his own lip, “that's hot.”

Just like that, his grip drops away from Peder's chest and he's on his knees. His fingers curl tightly around the jut of Peder's hip bones over the top of his leggings and he's using most of his weight to keep him pressed against the wall.

Peder thinks, vaguely, that he could get used to being manhandled like this.

Steffan noses under the hem of Peder’s tunic, bites softly at the edges of the scar that stretches across one side of Peder’s stomach. He stops when his lips catch on the fabric of his leggings.

“May I?” he says, glancing up through eyelashes that suddenly seem impossibly long.

Peder threads his fingers through Steffan's hair and nods.

 

***

 

Miri finds them there later. They’re curled up on the floor in the corner of the room. Peder’s legs are stretched over Steffan’s and they’re sharing lazy kisses and a bottle of wine.

“Britta told me you two were in here together, but I have to admit this isn’t exactly what I was expecting to find,” she says.

“She didn’t come with you?” Steffan asks.

“You can’t feel her?” Miri says. He curls a hand around the back of her neck and drags her into a kiss, somehow more eager than their previous one had been. When she pulls back, there’s a smile in her voice. “You’re drunk. That explains things.”

“‘M not drunk,” he says. “I have been drinking. Just a little. You and Britta were being so loud, and wine helps...quiet everything down a little.”

“You mean, the linder was being loud, right?” Peder says. “Miri and Britta weren’t actually _being_ _loud_.”

“I think it was probably both,” Miri says, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Want to come see what we were so loudly doing?”

He frowns at he bottle of wine as Steffan brings it to his lips again. “I am actually drunk,” Peder declares. “Very drunk. Actually. I think I should go to bed.”

“That’s where I just invited you,” Miri says, confiscating the wine.

 

***

 

“The first time we came to Asland,” Miri tells Peder the next morning, “we weren't betrothed yet and I was terrified you'd meet some low lander girl that you liked more than me. I never thought to be worried about Britta.”

“I don't like her more than you,” he says. They're sprawled messily across the bed, all four of them, but the sun has barely risen and Britta and Steffan haven't woken up yet. Peder runs his fingers through Britta's hair absentmindedly.

Miri turns her head and presses her lips against Peder's shoulder, less a kiss than a reassurance of proximity. “Did you worry about me?” she says.

Peder smiles softly. “Not like that,” he says. “I thought for a while there you were going to get your head chopped off by revolutionaries, but I knew you'd never fall in love with a low lander.”

“I fell in love with Britta.”

He makes a vague movement with his hand as if to brush away her argument. “Yeah, but she's practically from Mount Eskel. And I'm pretty sure you fell in love with her while you were both still _on_ Mount Eskel, so I don't think that counts. You can't fall in love with Steffan, though.”

“Oh no,” Miri grins at him. “I wouldn't dream of it. It's a shameful thing to love a lowlander, you know.”

“And a prince, besides,” he sighs. “What would your father say?”

“What would my husband say?”

Peder closes his eyes as if the thought pains him. “I try not to think about it. Or him, really. Or that thing he does with this tongue, especially.”

“Hmm,” Miri says. “I don’t think I’ve experienced the tongue thing.”

“You’re missing out,” he says. He spreads his hand across her bare stomach, and drums his fingers in the beat of a quarry song. “Maybe I should show you.”


End file.
